Various technologies exist for providing polarized light onto an imaging detector. These techniques include using polarizing filters or wire grids positioned in front of the imaging detector. The filters can be rotated or removed to change the polarization of the light incident on the imaging detector. The wire grids may have uniform orientation over the entire imaging detector array, or may be arranged in “super pixel” blocks, for example. Conventional implementations of polarizers always provide polarization of the light incident on the imaging detector. Only a filter which is physically removed can be “turned off” so as to allow unpolarized light to reach the imaging detector. Alternately, an imaging system may include multiple detectors in combination with beam splitters which may or may not be polarizing themselves. This approach allows for various polarizations and broadband unpolarized measurements to be made sharing the same incident light; however, this approach has a penalty in quantum efficiency and/or size, weight, power and cost.